UK Aid Cuts Now Deeper than the US After Congress Pushes Back

The US Congress has just passed its Fiscal Year 2026 spending bill. The bill includes much of the international affairs budget and—while there’s no guarantee these funds will be fully spent by the administration—its approval illustrates that there is still support for constructive international action among US lawmakers.

Across the pond, the UK government announced a year ago that it will reduce spend on aid to 0.3 percent of GNI by 2027. A lack of common definitions and different fiscal years makes any comparison imperfect but in this blog we examine how the deal advanced by Congress measures up against the changes to the aid budget being implemented in the UK—and ask why UK lawmakers are not pushing back on deep cuts in the same way as Congress?

We find that Congress is reducing development-related allocations by 23 percent in fiscal year 2026 relative to the base budget in fiscal year 2024, while the UK government plans a steeper cut of 27 percent in its 2026/27 budget, and 34 percent by 2027/28.

How much funding has Congress provided for the US international affairs budget?

When the Trump administration submitted its FY26 budget request to Congress, it sought roughly $31 billion in cuts to the international affairs budget—nearly a 50 percent cut from spending in the two previous years. That request also forecast plans to claw back foreign aid funding previously approved by Congress—which the administration pursued in two separate packages last year. And with the shuttering of USAID and cancellation of scores of existing foreign aid awards, spending across international development and humanitarian priorities has slowed considerably. But with this new spending package, US lawmakers affirmed a vision for future international affairs spending of more than $50 billion: a 14 percent cut from the recent Biden-era base budget.

For those interested in international development, these budgets do not equate to the OECD’s measure of Official Development Assistance (ODA). But most budget lines relate to overseas spending, and we can identify those that predominantly relate to development. In particular, it’s clear that much of the international security assistance line of $8.9 billion is distinct from development spend. The same is true of most of the $16.3 billion under State Department Operations. Below, we total all of the budget lines that we judge to be development-related. This is not an estimate of ODA—we have not, for example, adjusted spend at different multilaterals according to the share that counts as ODA—but it provides a sound estimate of development relevance. In several recent years, Congress has approved substantial boosts in spending through supplemental appropriations measures (for example, it provided more than $5 billion in humanitarian support as well as more than $7 billion in economic support for Ukraine in FY24) that will have pushed up actual spend beyond the base budgets in the table below.

Table 1: US Congress agreed budgets for international assistance ($million)

Source: *Authors’ analysis of USGLC's annual review of the budget; FY2024 Bill and FY2026 Act

Notes: These budgets do not include some other development-related spending, for example on international food assistance. Figures are US government fiscal year with FY26 running from October 2025 to September 2026.

Bilateral economic assistance makes up the largest share of the US international affairs budget. While lawmakers largely shielded global health spending from large reductions, accounts covering non-global health development and humanitarian aid will see a combined cut of nearly $6 billion. Congress has also consolidated multiple accounts, including creating a new “National Security Investment Programs” budget line of $6.8 billion, which combined Development Assistance ($4.8 billion) and the Economic Support Fund ($3.9 billion). The Trump administration had requested $2.9 billion for a flexible America First Opportunity Fund. In the deal advanced by Congress, $575 million in funding from the National Security Investment Programs account is available for the administration’s new flexible fund. Without more information about how this fund will be used, in the calculations above, we have assumed it is not development related.

What cuts to international assistance is the UK planning?

In the UK, Parliament does not set the development budget directly, though it did vote to approve the government’s overall spending plans agreed last summer. Parliament also passed a law in 2015 which states that ODA must be 0.7 percent of GNI, though successive governments have used the clause on “fiscal circumstances” to justify spending less, and the Prime Minister has said ODA will be 0.3 percent of GNI in 2027. Although this is ostensibly a 40 percent cut from the 0.5 percent of GNI spent in 2024, the actual fall in spending levels will be smaller (assuming GNI grows). Around a fifth of the budget will continue to be spent on costs related to refugee-hosting inside the UK, which is barely relevant to development and not included in the above US figures, and so we focus on UK allocations which exclude this spend. The most recent Spending Review set programmed ODA at £7.7 billion in 2026/27 (about $9.9 billion using 2024 exchange rates) and £7 billion in 2027/28 ($9 billion). Relative to figures for 2024-25 this represents a 27 percent cut in 2026/27 and a 34 percent cut in 2027/28. The UK’s cuts in 2026 are therefore proportionately larger than those agreed by US Congress and are even steeper in 2027.

Table 2: UK ODA spending plans (£m)

Source: HM Treasury correspondence with CGD (September 2025) on Phase 1 Spending Review ODA programming allocations; HM Treasury (June 2025) Spending Review 2025, Table 5.12, p.69.

Notes: Up to date 2025/26 figures have not been published. Figures are UK fiscal year with, for example, 2026/27 referring to April 2026 to March 2027.

Looking at effort relative to national income, the UK’s international development spend is on course to be around 0.23 percent of its GNI in 2027/28 (this figure excludes domestic spending on refugees). This is still higher than the US equivalent of 0.20 percent in 2024 (all US ODA was 0.23 percent) which will likely fall further in 2025.

This is all while the UK government continues to assert itself as a development leader—for example with its planned Conference on the Future of International Development scheduled for May; or in the Labour Party manifesto ahead of the last election.

Conclusion

In the US, the Trump administration has made dramatic changes to the US aid architecture and curbed international aid spending; but Congress has demonstrated a willingness to push back on the deepest of cuts, projecting continued support for international assistance in its latest spending deal. In the UK, however, parliamentarians have so far offered very little resistance to plans to implement very steep cuts.

As the UK government cuts meaningfully take effect from April 2026, and as other countries start to take notice of the UK’s diminishing role, we hope that MPs can take inspiration from their legislative counterparts across the pond and challenge the reductions...

We are very grateful for advice and comments from Erin Collinson and Julia Brownell. All views and any errors are those of the authors.